The Rebels of Ireland (75 page)

Then, late in March, came the news from London.

“Lord North and his government have resigned. The English Parliament is giving up America. King George is threatening to abdicate.” And then, soon afterwards, an ashen-faced Hercules came round.

“The king will stay; but there's to be a new government in London. The damned Whigs are in. Your cursed friend Richard Sheridan is given ministerial office. And do you know what he has declared in the English Commons? That the rule of the English over the Irish Parliament is a ‘tyrannous usurpation.' Those were his very words.” He shook his head. “The world has gone mad.”

Mad or not, it was clear at once to everyone that a great change was in the air. With the Whigs in power in England, and the Ulster Volunteers sending out representatives with their manifesto all over Ireland, the Patriots had never been given such a glorious opportunity before. To the disgust but not the surprise of Hercules, Grattan
immediately introduced a motion into the Dublin Parliament demanding independence for the Irish Parliament under the crown. “We will share a king with the English,” the Patriots declared, “but with the dignity of a separate nation.” On the day of the great debate, Georgiana went to watch from the gallery. Grattan was sick that day, as it happened, but he rose from his bed to attend. No one, not even his enemies, could deny, Georgiana thought, that he cut a simple and noble figure as he overcame his sickness to give one of the finest speeches of his life. Members who would have voted with Hercules before, seeing that the wind was suddenly blowing the other way, voted with the Patriots now. To cheers, the motion was carried. The Irish Parliament, by a clear majority, declared its independence from England. And there was little chance that the Whigs in London, having always supported the Patriot cause before, could do anything but ratify it now. Grattan had triumphed; Ireland had triumphed. But in all fairness, it had to be admitted that Hercules was not entirely wrong when he declared:

“It's the damned Americans we have to thank for this.”

Patrick returned to Dublin a week after the debate, and this time he did not fail to call to see Georgiana.

“You missed all the fun,” she remarked.

“I conducted some excellent business,” he informed her. “I have also shipped over a prodigious quantity of books for your library.”

“And have you come to a decision concerning the women in your life?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied calmly, “I think so.” But he did not say more, and so she managed, with great difficulty, not to enquire further.

Two days later, he called upon Louisa. But what had transpired between them, not even Eliza could discover. Early in May, accompanied by two cartloads of books, he went out for Mount Walsh.

The English Parliament did not vote upon the Irish question un
til the middle of the month, and George and Georgiana remained in Dublin until news came that, as anticipated, the Whigs had given the Patriots what they wanted. Then they set out for Wexford themselves.

“By the time we get there, I've no doubt Patrick will have catalogued and installed all the new books,” George remarked with satisfaction.

“And perhaps he'll also be able to tell me what he has decided about Louisa and Jane Kelly,” Georgiana added. “What do you think he has done?”

“I think he has been tempted by Louisa and her fortune, but that his conscience has led him back to the Catholic girl,” said her husband.

When they arrived at Mount Walsh, however, and asked if Patrick was there, they were told that he had left the day before. That was all they were told.

“I could scream with vexation,” Georgiana confessed with a laugh as soon as they were alone in their bedroom.

But she noticed that her husband was looking thoughtful.

“Something's up,” he told her. “Didn't you notice that all the servants are looking awkward?” A few moments later, he left her, returning ten minutes later. “The books are in the library, all beautifully catalogued. Everything's in perfect order. But I'm telling you, there's something going on.”

“Leave it to me,” she said with a smile, and went down to see the cook.

It did not take long. Only as long as it took the dear woman to lead Georgiana into the pantry, where they could be alone, and to burst out her incoherent tale. “Oh, my lady,” she began, “such goings-on.” The butler was only waiting until his lordship came down to acquaint him of the situation.

“Situation?”

“Of Mr. Patrick. And after him and Miss Kelly always seeming so respectable together…to run off like that.”

“He has eloped with Miss Kelly?”

“Oh, my lady, if only he had. If it isn't the girl Brigid he's gone off with, and not a word to anyone. Him such a gentleman and she…whatever she may be. And always so quiet and thin as a rake…or not so thin now, God help her.”

“He has taken Brigid? Where?”

“He's after taking her to Dublin to live in his house. It might be to the ends of the earth, for all the good it will do the one or the other of them. But it's to Dublin they went, sure enough.”

“You knew nothing before?”

“Never a word. Under our noses, and not one of us knew it. With the two of them up there in the library hour after hour.”

“He has behaved disgracefully,” Georgiana cried. Though in her heart she was thinking: and like a fool.

“She must have bewitched him,” said the cook stoutly. “I should have been on the watch for it.” She shook her head. “I should have known she'd be sly the day that I first looked into her face.”

“For what reason?”

“Why, did your ladyship never notice the strange green eyes that she has?”

It was true. The dark-haired girl had eyes that were green. But she had never thought much about it.

 

CROPPIES

1796

 

D
EIRDRE GAZED DOWN
from Rathconan towards the sea. She had been standing there half an hour and the damp spring breeze had left tiny droplets of moisture on her brow, but she didn't move.

She was sure he was coming.

How did she know? There had been rumours, of course, whispers that had quickly penetrated even the high valleys around Rathconan, and which might have suggested that he would come before long. But that wasn't how she knew. It was a sense of things she couldn't explain, an instinct she had learned to trust that told her, as it had done many times before, that he was drawing near.

Patrick Walsh: the man she hated more than the devil himself.

She had good reason. In the first place, he had stolen her daughter. Then he had used her shamefully. And now? She was afraid of something even worse. He was going to steal her husband, too. He would take Conall away and—her instinct told her this also—she would never see him again.

There had never been anyone else for her besides Conall. It seemed to her that their lives were set together eternally, like a pair of rocks upon the high mountainside which had been together since the beginning of time and would remain, in life or death, until the end. As a little girl, he had been her life; when he had been sent away, it had been as if her life had ended. And for ten years, she had lived in a sort of wilderness.

During that time, her existence at Rathconan had been as uneventful as it was quiet. If you went down to the coast, there was a good turnpike road with a stagecoach running between Dublin and Wicklow town, so that you could be in the capital in hours. But once you travelled up the steep passes into the mountains towards Rathconan and Glendalough, you entered a timeless zone, a world away, where nothing ever seemed to change. Her grandfather had continued to teach the hedge school, ageing so slowly it was imperceptible. If he never spoke of Conall, she supposed it was so as not to hurt her. Nor did anyone else at Rathconan speak of him—or not to her, anyway. Budge had made it plain that he did not wish Conall to return home, and since his father Garret seemed intent upon sinking ever further into drunken despondency, not everyone in Rathconan thought the landlord was wrong.

But once a year, each spring, a change would come over Garret Smith. He would stop drinking. His speech, which had become careless, would become precise again. He would take pains to make himself presentable. And then he would walk down to the Wicklow road, where he would board the stagecoach to Dublin to see Conall. Sometimes her grandfather would accompany him the first few miles of the way, unless Budge had a cart going down that way, in which case he would offer Garret a ride. The landlord seemed to have no objection to these yearly trips. He had long ago gained his point; and besides, he had married a young lady from Kildare and had other things to think about.

Each time Garret returned, she would ask after Conall, and he would give her news of him and how he had grown. After three
years, she learned that he was leaving the school to be apprenticed to a carpenter. This surprised her, but Garret seemed to be happy about it. He'd be remaining in Dublin. “It's better for him there,” his father told her.

“Does he speak of me?” she once dared to ask.

“He does, Deirdre. He remembers you well,” Garret replied. But it was hard to tell what this meant. In due course, she heard that the carpenter was so impressed with Conall's abilities that he had sent him to complete his apprenticeship with his brother, who was a cabinetmaker. “I think he'll do very well,” Garret told her.

It was on his next visit that something had happened. He had been looking sickly all that year. Some days his face had been flushed, but at other times when Deirdre had encountered him, his skin had been a ghastly grey and his hands had shaken. This time, before going into Dublin, his preparations had been less effective. He had only curtailed his drinking a day or two before he left; he had shaved, cutting himself several times, and put on clean clothes. But as the carter took him down towards the Wicklow road, her grandfather had shaken his head and remarked that he didn't think Garret would get through it this time.

He'd returned five days later in a woodman's cart, his clothes dusty and covered with shavings, and having staggered into his cottage without a word to anyone, had not appeared until the following day. When she asked after Conall, he gave her a haggard look and answered, “He was well, Deirdre, but I was not,” and he would not say more. But to her grandfather some time later he confessed: “I behaved badly in Dublin. I humiliated my son before all his friends. Then I quarrelled with him.” He had shaken his head silently, but tears had formed in his eyes. “Perhaps that oaf Budge was right to send my son away.”

“You must repair the damage. You must stop your drinking, then go down and be reconciled with him,” O'Toole had told him. But though Garret had nodded his head, he had not done it. The next
year, he was in no better shape, his courage had failed him, and he had not gone at all. By the following spring, he wasn't fit to go anywhere.

And all this time, Deirdre had wondered: what was to become of her? While Conall was away in Dublin, she was growing into a young woman. Some of the young O'Byrnes and Brennans were already wanting to court her, but she hadn't the least interest in them. Should she look for work in Wicklow, as a servant, probably? Or in Dublin? She'd see him, she supposed, if she went to Dublin. She spoke to her grandfather to ask his advice.

“You wouldn't be happy in Dublin,” he told her. “You'd miss the mountains. Every day you'd be standing in the broad streets, looking up at the hills—they seem so close, you know, it's as if you can touch them. Yet they, and all that you love, would be out of reach.”

“Perhaps,” she ventured, “I shouldn't be too lonely. Conall would be a friend to me.”

“You should not think of Conall.” He had sighed. “He was your childhood companion, Deirdre. But that was long ago, and people change. You should forget him now.”

But a year later, when Garret, after a terrible three-week drinking bout, was obviously dying, it was her grandfather who had written the letter summoning Conall to come.

He'd arrived half a day too late. She had seen him in the distance, coming up from the Wicklow road, a slim, handsome young man, striding up the mountain track with confident ease; and as soon as she saw him, her heart had missed a beat. She waited until he reached her.

“I'm sorry, Conall. Your father's gone.”

He'd nodded, as if he'd expected it. Then they had walked into Rathconan together.

It was strange, after so many years, that it should have felt so natural, walking side by side with Conall, as though they had never been parted. Did he feel the same? she wondered.

The wake was a subdued affair. She and her grandfather helped
Conall make the arrangements. Everyone at Rathconan came. Even Budge and his wife appeared for a little while, as a courtesy to the dead, and greeted the priest civilly enough. Before leaving, Budge had taken Conall to one side, but Deirdre had been near enough to hear what passed between them.

“Your father died a Catholic, of course,” the landlord said quietly, “but may I ask what Church you belong to yourself nowadays?”

“Well, Sir,” Conall answered politely, “in Dublin, as you well know, I was in the Church of Ireland school, and so I went to that Church; and many of my Dublin friends are Protestant. Here at Rathconan, all these good people, my cousins many of them, are Catholic. And to tell you the truth, I have no very strong feelings in the matter.”

“I see.” There was no church at Rathconan itself, though from time to time Budge and his family would go to the church a few miles away, to show solidarity. His support for the Church of Ireland was absolute, but no one would have called him pious. Judging by the careful look he gave Conall now, it seemed that Budge found this answer acceptable.

Deirdre had been studying Conall ever since he got back. It was already clear to her that the years in Dublin had left their mark. The Conall she had known and loved was still there, she was sure of it. But this young man had a quiet self-assurance about him, a dignified reserve far more like her grandfather than his own father Garret. Yet, as was now apparent, he had learned to combine this confidence with a respectful manner that was clearly pleasing to a man like Budge.

“You mean to return to Dublin shortly?” the landlord asked.

“I am told that I could do well as a cabinetmaker in Dublin, Sir,” Conall replied. “But I miss the mountains of my childhood. I am wondering if I could make a living as a carpenter here.” He gave Budge an inquiring glance. “If I can prove that I am sober and reliable.”

Budge looked at him searchingly for several moments, then gave a brief nod and suggested he come to see him after his father was buried. He left soon afterwards.

“You would stay up here, Conall,” she asked, “after being in Dublin?”

“I think of it,” he answered. “I think of marrying and settling down.”

“Oh.” She fought to control herself. “And who is this lucky girl that you're thinking of marrying?” she asked lightly.

“Yourself,” he said.

If Budge had entertained misgivings about having another troublesome Smith as a tenant, it had to be said that he had behaved well enough. The day after Conall had moved in, he had come to the cottage in person and informed him:

“I had a front door made some years ago, but it is not satisfactory. Would you make me a new one?” And when the work was done, in best oak, and Conall had fitted it, Budge and his wife had admired it, and he'd exclaimed: “That is beautiful work, Conall, I have to say. Beautiful.” And Conall had been well paid.

Further commissions had followed, from the landlord and from his friends. Some time later, armed with a letter from Budge, Conall had gone down into Wicklow to see a cabinetmaker there, and from this had developed a long relationship. The Wicklow man would send out work to him, and every few weeks would see Conall going down into Wicklow in a cart with a table, or some chairs, or a well-made cabinet. To give the lie to his father's reputation, the work was always perfectly produced and never late. After a few years, the Wicklow man had wanted to take him into partnership, but though he could certainly have made a better living, Conall and Deirdre had always preferred to stay up at Rathconan in the mountains.

Conall drank a little ale, but always in moderation. He never said or did anything to offend Budge or his like. And as the years went by, the landowner would often at dinner cite Conall as proof that, with a little persuasion and a lot of firm treatment, “your Irishman
can frequently be turned into a hardworking and respectable craftsman.”

As for herself, Deirdre had found happiness, peace, her destiny. A few days before she and Conall had married, her grandfather had taken her to one side and asked: “Are you sure, Deirdre, that this is what you want?” She had been so surprised that he would ask such a thing, but she had assured him that it was, so he had said no more. And the early months of her marriage had entirely confirmed her choice.